


pointer fingers (the finger that pulls the trigger)

by kenjiru



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Character Death, F/M, but oikawa is mentioned like once, but so is iwaizumi so i guess it's a little better, guns.., hitman au woo, reader is kind of a bad person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:20:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27663266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kenjiru/pseuds/kenjiru
Summary: People who kill bad people aren’t allowed to be good people, either. And it sucks that those people who killed bad people were you and him.
Relationships: Iwaizumi Hajime/Reader
Kudos: 6





	pointer fingers (the finger that pulls the trigger)

His trigger finger trembles when his target walks into the room, and he feels it tap against his palm in a way he can’t control when he’s almost the subject of your attention.

He’s no Dicaprio, he doesn’t have enough sense to play a character he’s not anymore — there’s no threat to hide from these days. Your presence in the room shouldn’t be anything to him, because he’s a normal person. He doesn’t do anything out of the ordinary. _His head is clear,_ he tries to convince himself. _He has nothing to think about_. But thoughts always tend to conquer the mind even faster when you refuse to acknowledge them.

A clock hung on the wall behind him still ticks loudly and reminds him that he’s still on shift for a little longer, but that’s not what he thinks about. He doesn’t think about the hand on the clock that’s far too loud for his comfort, but he thinks about yours.

_Tick, tick, tick._

Your hands; they’re covered in leather gloves that he assumes are to scare the frostbite from outside away. But he still notices and remembers how delicately they hold one another. Iwaizumi knows your fingertips might as well be the closest thing to clouds in terms of feeling and he knows that you like show compassion through your touch when you feel like doing so; he misses the days when he used to feel it himself. Back when neither of you were just ‘normal’ people. You look up to meet his gaze and he sees red.

Your pocket feels heavier.

He doesn’t look away no matter the stress and his trigger finger curls again, and it’s looking for a gun. Iwaizumi’s first instinct in the world always was and most likely always will be to shoot to kill when in danger, from what he understands, even if he’s left the hitman career in the past.

(And sadly, you crumbled with it.)

His other hand even goes so far as to pat his pant leg; he’s searching for ammo.

One of the leather gloves you wore rests on the counter that still needs to be cleaned before closing, and he worries you may have just set it in a puddle of spilt dark roast. “Long time no see, Iwaizumi.”

“Yeah.” he breathes. You used to call him Hajime, back when you used to strip him of his bloodied suit and draw him in by his tie; _you_ used to be the one longing. “Can I get you something?”

“A medium coffee. Nothing added.” This is different. Where’s the vanilla creamer you used to like? Or the half-packet of artificial sugar?

Nonetheless, he’s swallowing his questions. You’re a changed person, so is he. He assumes you don’t even remember the whirlwind he roped you into, and you assume he thinks that way too.

It’s dangerous how well you know each other, in a sense.

“Sure,” he finally replies. “Is that all?”

You hum in agreement, deciding that sometimes words are better left unsaid. Even if you always used to insist that speaking your mind was always a good idea, since languages were ‘made to be spoken’. That reason in itself makes Iwaizumi curious as to why you’ve become quiet.

He asks, or more so points it out. “You’re pretty silent nowadays I’m getting, aren’t you?”

“Iwaizumi—” You feel talking is inappropriate today. 

“Sorry, it’s something I noticed.”

“I’m a changed person.” Sure. The reply you offer is quick, it’s obvious it’s meant to cut his own response short. “Forget who I used to be.”

“But I don’t want to.” He wants to bite back his words, because irrationality isn’t his thing anymore.

“You _have_ to.”

“Not if I keep the old you secret. I don’t want to forget you”

_Do dead people keep their memories?_

“Iwaizumi— no,” you sigh. “Drop it.”

A storm brews in his chest and he clears his throat — he’s thankful that you’re the last one before closing, and there’s not even a small line behind you. If there were, he’s sure the online reviews of the place he works would drop dramatically. Nobody likes waiting in lines that take too long.

It gives him time to think about everything that used to be you — the _two_ of you, that is. Though most memories are filled with side details of death and trading gear, he’s finding himself sifting through ones that were so pure; you couldn’t even taint them with your titles as _hitmen_.

There used to be times when you would curl up beside him in an apartment he wasn’t paying for, someone who hired him was. You would comb your fingers through his hair, he would talk otherworldly shit on his and your career choice, talk even worse on his hirers and the people he killed for pocket money; and you’d tell him to stop overthinking. It was going to make you realize what he already had, too.

‘ _They looked innocent_ ,’ he’d say, with a drowsy frown and fingers picking at a pillowcase that — once again — he didn’t pay for. ‘ _I didn’t want to hurt these ones_.’

‘ _People who have people hiring hitmen on them are never innocent, Haji. Go to sleep_.’

But the people who kill bad people aren’t allowed to be good people, either. And it sucks that those people who killed bad people were you and him.

There used to be times when he used money from jobs to take you out somewhere, like the exhibition that comes around when the cold does. It was always in late summer and all Iwaizumi needed to worry about was if you were smiling the entire time. Because if not, there was always a solution one way or another around that. Especially at carnivals, there’s always _something_.

“Please just make my coffee.” you say, your voice coated with a bite that’s not intentional. “Sorry.”

Iwaizumi nods and turns on his heel. He just wants to make the drink and go home, maybe think about how nice everything could have been if you didn’t mistake a gun for a flower and if you didn’t take it when he handed it to you.

Outside of the window he can barely see any blue skies overhead. Iwaizumi personally never pays much attention to the weather, unless it’s piss-pouring rain and makes wearing denim uncomfortable. But he still remembers how you always loved it when the sun came and went, due to the over abundance of clouds. Something you liked, he hated. You and Iwaizumi didn’t agree much on anything, but the flags always looked vividly green to the both of you anyways.

Clouds never bring anything good along besides a pointless rainbow after the showers, Iwaizumi said once when you mentioned they look comfy. Aside from that; it’s harder to aim and shoot at a moving target in the first place, let alone having your eyelashes drip with raindrops and your finger slip on the metal. And God forbid you miss your target, you’ll feel even _worse_ about being a murderer.

They certainly didn’t bring him any good aside from that, either. He’d even go so far to call them bad luck and blame it on that; you met him beneath the clouds, you cried beneath the clouds, you left him beneath the clouds,

and now you’re here. Underneath the clouds. Saying ‘hi’ and teasing him with the fact that you’re something he isn’t supposed to want anymore.

But maybe it’s a good thing that he can’t, maybe you were truly a set-for-destruction pair who mixed together no better than bleach and vinegar. He should likely stop looking at grey skies as a vivid reminder of you and start thinking of them as the repeat of a vicious cycle; and he mourns the loss of the ability to see the beauty in changing weather.

Iwaizumi supposes it’d be best to tell you to leave and maybe you can forget the entire interaction even happened. He’ll wonder if you’re still doing dirty work, or maybe _you have a pistol in your pocket loaded and ready to kill him_ —to kill everything you had spilled to him and make sure it’s gone without a chance of resurfacing.

He shouldn’t think so wrongly of you, you saved him before.

“Hajime,” the way you say his name sets him at an unease, and he keeps fighting the urge to turn around. “Haji.”

Iwaizumi doesn’t want to see a barrel. He wants to see your smile, maybe even a few tears as cruel as it sounds; a sweet and heartwarming reunion that might even put an end to your vicious cycle of heartache and, more specifically, death. Even if you aren’t always the ones dying. What’s more cruel than wanting to see tears eyes, though, is holding a former acquaintance at gunpoint.

Your own trigger finger trembles, you hope it’s on safety. You don’t want to yet, you can’t until he’s turned toward you, special orders from the mastermind behind it all. But Iwaizumi is sharp, he always has been. Iwaizumi heard the click.

He hates that he’ll never be able to look at a pointer finger as anything but the thing that pulls the trigger, whether that he because he was someone who held a gun all too often or because he simply won’t have enough time to change his mind on the matter.

“Hajime, turn around.” He understands that you’re a con artist. “Can we try this again?”

He can’t turn around, he knows what’s waiting for him. You’re just a cruel bastard for making him stare you in the eyes when you do it.

“You said you would quit, find a better life. I did it, you could too.”

“I got roped into this by _you_.”

“And I said I could get you out, but you wouldn’t listen to me.”

“Hajime, I won’t hurt you.”

“Yes, you will. You have a gun.”

Iwaizumi hears you sniffle and he clutches the countertop, hard and with enough internalized fear to almost cause cardiac arrest. If a bullet won’t kill him, the stress of the whole ordeal certainly will.

“Hajime, please.” your cries sound as sympathetic as they come, but he understands it’s a rouse. He should’ve made a run for it out the back the minute he saw your gloves, you never were the type to wear those things around willingly. “ _Iwaizumi_.”

He hears an empty click and his head snaps toward you, just like you wanted. He curses the natural human reflex, because he knows. There’s one bullet left and you knew what you were doing.

“Don’t.” he warns, but he doesn’t know what he’s warning for. He’s got nothing on you, you’ve got everything on him. Specifically a metal barrel, disgustingly unwelcoming, and he knows that a bullet is going to be leaving it this time unlike the last. “You don’t have to.”

“I do, this is a do-or-die job.”

“Who?”

“You know I can’t tell you that.”

Iwaizumi thinks he hears a quiver in your voice and maybe sees some tears in your eyes, but then again, he wouldn’t know why. Because you’re not the one about to get shot at point blank range by the someone you happened to be in an _entanglement_ with once upon a time, someone who apparently found it in their killer heart to _love_ you.

“What’s it matter?” Iwaizumi spits, even if he doesn’t have much room to make you angry. “Dead people don’t talk.”

That’s true. “You wouldn’t wanna know anyways.”

With that, Iwaizumi doesn’t say anything else. Your breathing is only getting more and more heavy and he decides he’s going to not focus on the fact he’s going to die to you, of all people. He turns his head, and looks out the window; _are people watching through the glass?_

(The answer is as simple as ‘no’. Pedestrians don't suspect guilty baristas to be held at gunpoint.)

He looks outdoors still, even if no one notices in the dim lights of the room hides a murderer, who’s pointing a gun at another murderer, who’s just posing as a barista. You don’t bother to look outside, because the second you take your eyes off of Iwaizumi, it’s game over.

_Clouds look nice today_ , he supposes. He hates those motherfuckers for bringing in bad luck. _Meeting you, leaving you, dying due to you_. But since he doesn’t have enough generous time to apologize to everything he’s ever hated in life, he figures he’ll start with what’s around him.

“I’m sorry.” Iwaizumi says, and he doesn’t know who he’s apologizing to. The clouds, the coffee machine that broke last month and is so slow it has him working overtime to try and fix it, you?

“For what?” you say, tears that he doesn’t get to see starting to trickle down your face. “Why are you apologizing?”

“Everything.”

Silence overcomes the room, eerily still. You can’t even hear his panicky breathing, he hides it so well. But what Iwaizumi does hear, is the way your finger starts to cramp on the trigger. _You’re actually gonna do it._

He turns toward you, your red eyes widen, a hand reaches out to steer the gun away, you hesitate, he’s almost got a hand on your wrist, you forget how to breathe, he forgets that gun _is_ most definitely loaded, and there is only one more shot fired before commotion stops.

One man stands and it’s not him; his head is instead up in the clouds, and he’s looking down as you drop the now-empty gun.

He wonders if you’ll at least leave him there, and he can get buried and Oikawa might be able to get over it. If not that, he hopes you’ll at least tell somebody that the stack of coupons he used to collect are still in that same apartment closet. If you even remember he used to collect those. Because honestly? It’d be a shame for them to go to waste.

**Author's Note:**

> help idk what this is i just had a minor (major) iwaizumi fixation


End file.
